Welcome to Litsy!

A deeply unsettling story of what might happen if Palestinians simply disappeared. Told alternately through diary entries of a character who disappeared and the perspective of a Jewish journalist. His processing of the event and his actions, as well as those of the Israeli government, felt to me very close to what might actually happen. My fifth read from the Booker Intl longlist.

Tough one for Jewish me to review. The premise is that all the Arabs in Israel disappear. So we follow a Jewish reporter who breaks into his disappeared Palestinian friend‘s apartment, and finds and starts reading his diary about the Palestinian history in Jaffa. Reading a Palestinian diary through an uninvited Israeli reader echoes the colonialist theme brought up throughout the novel.

My next international booker read.
#booker #IB2025

Finished the first book from the International Booker Prize long list and it was so good. Gives a lot to think about!

Really excited for this list. This award always expands my reading - in country, culture, and style of writing. I am most excited to get to the tagged (as soon as I am done with the women's Prize madness)

Half thought experiment - All Palestinians in Israel disappear - how would those left behind react?

Half record of the trauma experienced by Palestinians.

Very sad book and very political. The sympathy is with the Palestinians but the Jewish POV chapters are very human - characters are portrayed as a misguided and self-interested, not as monsters.

This looks really interesting 🤔 I also like that the publisher put “Translated from the Arabic by Sinan Antoon” on the cover!